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Rebel soldiers use a treadmill at a Qaddafi compound in Tripoli after it was hit by a NATO air strike. Photograph by Ron Haviv.
his father's lunatic image. He played a
key role in negotiations with the West,
sponsored a political opening for his fa-
ther's domestic opponents, and arranged
an amnesty for imprisoned dissidents.
He set up a foundation to promote his
views, arranged junkets to Libya for the
foreign press, and argued in favor of
modernization and openness; he some-
times criticized his father, and then fell
out with him, ostensibly for not initiat-
ing reforms quickly enough.
But if Seif was genuinely interested
in liberalization his father was not.
:> Ashour Gargoum, a former Libyan dip-
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lorn at, worked on a human-rights com-
mission that Seif funded. After the Abu
Salim massacre came to light, he said,
Seif sent him with a delegation to Lon-
don to meet with Amnesty Interna-
tional, which was calling for an inves-
tigation into the killings. "Muammar
Qgddafi wanted a report from me about
this," he said. "I spoke to him in a tête-
à-tête, using words that I knew he
would accept. I phrased it 'the Abu
Salim problem,' and I said, We need to
resolve it,' this kind of language. He
said, 'But we have no political prisoners.'
I said, 'Yes, we do.' He said, 'But they
are heretics' "-meaning radical Is-
lamists. " 'They have no rights.'"
In the end, Seif's reformist equa-
nimity seemed to abandon him. Shortly
after the uprising began, he appeared in
a video waving a weapon in front of a
shouting mob of supporters. Promising
to defend the regime to the death, he
predicted that "rivers of blood" would
flow in Libya. The L.S.E. is investigat-
ing charges that Seif's doctoral disserta-
tion was ghostwritten; the dean re-
signed. The university said that it would
distribute that portion of Seif's gift
which had already been paid, about half
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 7, 2011 53